21 replies to this topic

[YaSO]

I was asking some question in this thread http://www.highranki...?showtopic=1121, but it's getting pretty long and hard to follow, so I am starting a new thread. Hope moderators feel Ok about this.

After I checked the site Word Tracker http://www.wordtracker.com/, I found that keywords that my site is good at aren't searched so frequently. However, doing SEO for the most popular keyword used to search sites related to my site might be too hard to pursue.

I'll be more specific. Apparently, the keyword "online degrees" was searched 1155 times for the last 24 hours from the largest Metacrawlers that (presumably) work with Word Tracker; the keyword is listed in the 10th in the whole list. I don't know how accurate the data is, but it appears that the keyword is a very popular term and also it will be tough to compete with other sites for the keyword.

Should I be targeting less popular keywords or should I be aggressively pursuing the most popular keywords? Any comment, suggestion, or advice would be appreciated.

Edited by YaSO, 04 October 2003 - 08:28 AM.

[qwerty]

The more pages you have on your site, the more keyword phrases you can target, and that includes the highly competitive ones. You may not make it to the top quickly -- you may never make it to the top -- but as the site grows and you gain more backlinks you're likely to at least move up.

[DanThies]

Based on the site that's in your signature, you should not be afraid to compete for anything. You've got content, you've got a growing community, and you're providing a useful resource. Optimize your pages, promote your site to get more incoming links, and you can compete for "online degrees" or whatever else you need to target.

[Peter]

YaSo,

How are you?

Just SEO,... I guess you mean with that just optimizing HTML code. SEO is more than that I think, but to answer your question:

Just SEO will be able to give you 20K visitors if:

* The keywords that are targeted are not too competitive
* The site has decent content already
* The site is reasonably designed

So basically it depends on what you start with,...

Regards,

Peter

[OldWelshGuy]

Yaso, i don't see how you can say that it is competitive, I assume you searched for a phrase that was generic rather than specific, let me make myself a bit more clear, as i am Welsh and tend to go on a bit.

If i wanted just any old degree or qualification then i am likely to search for online degrees, or online qualifications, or degrees online, or easy degrees etc, (these are as i type thoughts so they are fresh).

But & it is a BIG but, if i wanted an online distance learning degree in homeopathic medicine, then that is what i would type in to the search engine.

You have a vast amount of content opportunities, and i would think that with a bit of work, (well quite a lot really) starting with the most viable courses, you could have beautifully targeted flows of visitors going to each of your course pages, and signing up. It really is not about 20k visitors, its about qualified visitors having the information they need, put in front of them, together with a nice easy way of making a decision to buy.

If i want a degree in homeopathic medicine, and i turn up you page, and it answers all my questions, and i can afford it then if there is a big ENROL NOW AND MAKE YOUR WORLD A BETTER PLACE FOR YOU TO LIVE IN' button in front of me then i am very likely to press it and give you some money.

never mind the quantity feel the quality.

To answer your question though if you break it down to a course basis, if you have 20 courses available, then you are looking at 1000 per month hits, if you have 40 courses then its 500 per month per optimised course page.

You eat a whole elephant one sandwich at a time break it down and the unachievable becomes easily achievable, 30 courses = 1 course per day to focus on optimising and fine tuning, it really is IMO a matter of stepping back and looking at the thing in detail rather than as a whole.

BTW if any one else thinks i am talking through by backside feel free to tell me

[Scottie]

And I've been wondering the best way to eat an elephant... here it is!


Excellent post, OWG!

[Jill]

Yes, OWG is scaring me with the high quality of his posts here! (Me thinks he's been reading too much Advisor!)

And Scottie, I knew that eating smilie would come in handy at some point. Surprised it happened so quickly.

Off to find one where the smilie is actually eating an elephant...we need to be specific, just like the keywords!

Jill

[air-dog]

Yup those elephant sandwiches are well tasty, but don’t forget that one should always remove a certain part of the elephants anatomy upon the slaughter lest the meat be spoilt. Which is another metaphor for choosing the right keywords

[OldWelshGuy]

Aww guys be gentle, i am Welsh, and i am up front about being old bald and stupid :-)

I am a sad case who, without the web would be a basket case. with the web i am 2 basket cases

[daniel]

Old Bald & Stupid, but all that is more than compensated for by being born Welsh

Mad as hatters. Great people the Welsh, but absolutely bonkers!!

OWG, I liked the elephant analogy. Wasn't too keen on the sandwiches though - the meat was a bit too tough.

[YaSO]

I will be adding two more modules, one of which contains the keyword "online degree" many times. Depending on how much information I put in there, I will have the keyword used in my site many times. Hopefully, it will help my site to get much higher rankings, but here's my question.

As I continue developing my site, is it much easier and effective to increase the number of pages and get higher rankings? Or is it better to look at what I have now and try to optimize existing pages to get higher rankings? Which approach is more effective?

[Peter]

Yaso,

I´m not sure what you are asking exactly, but I think the following may help:

Try to target just one keyword phrase per page. You can target 2, but 3 is really the maximum, (and for very competitive phrases too much).

Regards,

Peter

[BrianR]

Yaso

The short answer is: Both.

But be careful if you are optimising a page for just one keyphrase - eg. online degree - because it's very easy to make the text read badly because you are so intent on repeating the one keyphrase so many times.

I find writing for two or three keyphrases per page actually makes the text flow more naturally because it's not so obvious which keyphrases you are optimising for.

BrianR

[Jill]

I would never optimize a page for just one keyword phrase. That's a waste of a perfectly good page that could be bringing people in for various phrases, as opposed to just one.

Jill

[Peter]

Jill,

I think it is impossible to optimize a page for just one phrase,.. however, when optimizing and writing copy, you can focus on just one phrase. I'm always surprised how much traffic comes in through search terms that weren't thought inititally.

In my humble oppinion the number of keywords that are targeted per page depend heavilly on how much competition there is for a keyword phrase. If a keyword phrase has a competition of millions of web site, I prefer to go with just one keyword phrase per page. If there are just a couple of hundred thousand of web sites competing for the same phrase, I go for more keyword phrases. But for me 3 is the absolute maximum. Also, in my experience (which of course is not even close to yours,.. ) with just one keyword phrase targeted, higher rankings are obtained faster. A lower pagerank page will then very much end up high in between lots of higher pagerank pages.

Perhaps I play it safe,...

Regards,

Peter